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Friday, February 3, 2017

Leasing the Moon

The near side of the Moon

by Marcel F. Williams

At the bottom of the world lies an icy continent larger than Europe-- but with only 5000-- temporary-- residents. While the continent of Antarctica can be explored, this polar condominium cannot colonized or commercially exploited in order. It is argued that this is the only way to protect Antarctica's pristine environment.

Of course, the same environmental philosophy could also be argued for Earth's other continents: North America, South America, Africa, Australia, and Eurasia.

But some have advocated that the Moon should also be under the same
environmental protection as Antarctica. This, of course, would prevent the
colonization of the Moon and the commercial exploitation of lunar resources.

On the Earth's surface, only about 3% of the land area is urbanized with cities, towns, and suburban areas. But the human utilization of the Earth's surface grows to 43% if we include the amount of land used for agriculture.

I happen to be a strong advocate for preserving the Earth's environment and the environment and natural beauty of the other major worlds in our solar system. Trying to convert Mars into an Earth-like world would be an abomination, in my opinion. But I don't believe that people should object to a reasonable level of commercial exploitation and colonization of other worlds -- if it proves to be possible to do so under a lower gravity environments.

And this should also apply to Antarctica, in my opinion.

The 1% Rule

What if the nations of the world passed an international law that allowed up to 1% of the terrestrial environment in Antarctica to be
commercially exploited and even colonized (up to 140,000 square kilometers of
territory) by the other nations of the world while also preventing at least 99% of the rest of the
continent from being settled or commercially exploited? That would mean that up to 140,000 square kilometers of land could be colonized or commercially exploited on the Antarctican continent.

Under this scenario, individual nations would be allowed to lease territory in
Antarctica for $1 million per year for one square kilometer of land
(100 hectares). While probably only the wealthiest nations would be able to afford to lease and exploit territory in Antarctica, the revenue-- from the leases-- would be equally divided amongst every nation on Earth. Because of the need to administer the leases, the UN (the United Nations) as an entity would also a receive a share of the revenue equal to that of the individual nations. So, in theory, as much as $140 billion in annual revenue could be annual generated from the leasing of 1% of the territory on Antarctica.

I'd also charge-- a renewal fee-- of $1 million per square kilometer of leased territory every 20 years.

Nations leasing territory in Antarctica would have the right to sublease some or all of its territory to private entities. If governments subleased territory for perhaps $100,000 a year per hectare, each square kilometer
of territory could potentially be worth up to $10 million per year.

Antarctica (Credit: Wikipedia)

To prevent enormous blocks of land from being leased in a single region by a single government, I'd limit the amount of continuous land that can be leased in Antarctica by a single nation to just 25 square kilometers within a radius of five kilometers. I'd also forbid a nation from leasing land in Antarctica that is less than 100 kilometers away from other lands that they are leasing in Antarctica. I'd also forbid other nations from leasing land that is within 5 kilometers of land being leased by another nation. This would allow potentially valuable regions in Antarctica to be colonized or exploited by multiple nations within a particular region.

Maximum continuous area allowed to be leased by a single nation: 25 square kilometers within a 5 kilometer radius

Minimum gap between leased areas among different nations: 5 kilometers

Minimum gap between areas leased by the same nation: 100 kilometers

The Lunar Territories

I would also advocate a similar international law for the exploitation and colonization of the lunar surface and the preservation of at least 99% of the lunar environment on the lunar surface. A maximum of 1% of the lunar surface could be leased to national governments who would be allowed sublease parts of their leased territories to private individuals and commercial companies.

I do believe, however, that there are some areas on the lunar surface that need to be more carefully managed and even banned from potential commercialization and colonization. I think it should be internationally agreed that territory on the far side of the Moon below 70˚ north or south (well beyond the polar regions) should be banned from commercial exploitation and colonization.

Positions of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points (Credit: Maccone)

Because the far side of the Moon is blocked from electromagnetic noise emanating from the surface of the Earth, this region of the lunar surface has always been viewed as the perfect location for future radio telescopes and phased array detectors. However, the prospect of outpost and colonies located at the EML4 and EML5 Earth-Moon Lagrange points would shrink the radio shielded areas on the backside of the Moon to a territorial radius of 910 kilometers extending from the lunar equator at a 180˚ longitude. Again, forbidding nearly all of the territory on the far side of the Moon from being leased would prevent it from being explored or used as an astronomical observatory. But it would prohibit the permanent deployment of spacecraft and potential habitats at EML2.

Protected Antipode circle on the farside of the Moon (Credit: Maccone)

I'd also prevent the ice at the lunar poles from being-- over exploited-- by limiting the maximum leased area within the polar regions to 1%. Since it is estimated the north and south poles of the Moon may contain as much as 6.6 billion tonnes of water ice. Assuming that areas in the polar regions that don't contain significant amounts of ice are avoided, perhaps up to 10% (660 million tonnes) of the ice in the polar regions could eventually be exploited under these rules. Over a 200 year period of maximum legal exploitation, up to 3.3 million tonnes of water ice could be mined each year. About 1000 tonnes of water per year would be required for NASA's human cis-lunar and Mars operations during the next 25 years. A lunar population of more than 450,000 people could probably be supported over a 200 year span, a lot more if a significant portion of the water is recycled and oxygen from the lunar regolith is exploited for air.

Probable ice deposits in the lunar south pole (Credit: NASA)

While such a large and growing lunar population might put intense
political pressure on allowing even more polar ice to be exploited, it
might be more sustainable for future Lunarians to start importing
hydrogen from other regions of the solar system: the NEO asteroids,
Mars, Mercury, Callisto, Jupiter's atmosphere, the asteroid belt, the
Greek and Trojan asteroids of Jupiter's orbital arc. Water and energy
could be produced By using the Moon's almost limitless oxygen
resources, hydrogen can be converted into water and energy. The
import of substantial amounts extraterrestrial hydrogen into cis-lunar
space could also give the Moon the economic advantage of exporting its
oxygen resources to LEO and the Earth-Moon Lagrange points for
propellant and to produce water and energy.

Regions not available for leasing:
Regions on the far side of the Moon below 75 degrees latitude (north
and south) including the Protected Antipode Circle, a circular piece of
land 1820
kilometers in diameter on the far side of the Moon shielded from
potential radio signals from orbital habitats and colonies located at
EML4 and EML5.

Maximum continuous area allowed to be leased by a single nation: 25 square kilometers within a 5 kilometer radius

Maximum continuous area allowed to be leased in the polar regions by an individual nation: 16 square kilometers within a 3 kilometer radius

Minimum gap between leased areas among different nations: 5 kilometers

Minimum gap between areas leased by the same nation: 100 kilometers

Minimum gap between areas leased by the same nation in the polar regions: 50 kilometers

Under these rules, the 51km in diameter Shoemaker crater alone would have enough area to legally exploitable area to accommodate ice mining by more than a dozen countries. Even with the 100 km gap between leased regions, the US could still lease several ice rich areas in the lunar south pole.

The Martian Territories

With a surface area of nearly 145 million square kilometers, nearly 1.45 million square kilometers of land could be exploited or colonized by the nations of the Earth with a potential revenues of nearly $1.45 trillion a year if all the territories legally allowed to be occupied were leased. But because Mars is much larger world, I'd allow up to 100 square kilometers of continuous land to be leased by an individual nation within a radius of 10 kilometers.

Map of the martian surface (Credit: NASA)

Mars

Surface area: 145 million square kilometers

Maximum leasable land area (1%): 1.45 million square kilometers ($1.45 trillion per year)

Maximum continuous area allowed to be leased by a single nation: 100 square kilometers within a 10 kilometer radius

Minimum gap between leased areas among different nations: 5 kilometers

Minimum gap between areas leased by the same nation: 100 kilometers

I think its obvious, under these rules, that far less than 1% of the land area on these extraterrestrial worlds would ever have to be leased in order to sustain human civilization in the solar system over the next 1000 years.

3 comments:

This assumes that forever in the future the Moon and Mars will never have population large enough to require more than 1% of its surface to develop. I don't find that likely. Rather, I think that it should be viewed from the National Park perspective where there are areas (maybe regions) where development is restricted.

If future urbanization on Mars was equivalent in density to the current density of urbanization on Earth's land mass then 1% urbanization on Mars would limit the human population to about 2.3 billion people.

That, of course, assumes that no one will be living underground on Mars but only on the surface under transparent water shielded biodomes.

The maximum number would be about 600 million on the Moon, if people only lived on the lunar surface under this rule. Since biodomes on the Moon would probably be totally regolith shielded from the outside environment, all inhabitants there would in a sense be living underground (even if on the surface underneath a few meters of regolith). However, I could imagine a significant number of people living below the surface on the Moon which could significantly increase the Moon's permanent population. A one kilometer in diameter biosphere could provide habitat space up to 500 meters below the surface (~100 to 200 levels of habitat space).

But, its my opinion that during the rest of this millennium at least 90% of humans will probably live in titanic solar orbiting rotating O'Neill type worlds.

"The knowledge that we have now is but a fraction of the knowledge we must get, whether for peaceful use or for national defense. We must depend on intensive research to acquire the further knowledge we need ... These are truths that every scientist knows. They are truths that the American people need to understand." (Harry S. Truman 1948).